The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
Vehicle article carrier systems are becoming more and more popular due in part to the decreasing size of passenger vehicles. Vehicle article carriers enable a wide variety of articles to be conveniently carried above an exterior body surface, for example the roof of a vehicle, and thereby to significantly increase the room available for passengers in the cabin area of the vehicle.
It has also become more important in recent years that the vehicle article carrier system does not detract from the aerodynamics of the vehicle. Accordingly, interest in vehicle article carrier systems that make use of stowable cross bars has grown significantly. Vehicle article carriers with stowable cross bars enable the cross bars to be stowed along respective side rail elements, when not needed, and moved into place when needed. This allows the vehicle article carrier to be configured to minimize any negative effects on the aerodynamics of the vehicle when the vehicle article carrier is not needed for use, while still allowing the cross bars of the system to be configured in an operative orientation (i.e., extending perpendicularly between the side rails) when the system is needed for use.
The assignee of the present disclosure has been a leader in the development of vehicle article carrier systems with stowable cross bars. In particular, the assignee of the present disclosure has developed a number of successful vehicle article carrier systems with “swing in place” cross bars. Such systems have cross bars that can be pivoted from one end so that they can be positioned to extend perpendicularly between a pair of fixedly mounted side rails. However, with a swing in place system, the cross bars do not need to be completely physically detached from the side rails when be repositioned from a stowed configuration to an operative configuration.
In view of the significant interest in vehicle article carrier systems that employ swing in place cross bars, there is a strong interest in further developing and improving the features and operation of such systems. There is a particularly strong interest in providing a low profile, aesthetically pleasing and highly aerodynamically efficient vehicle article carrier system with swing in place cross bars.